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Victoria bans gas connections in new homes from 2024
(www.abc.net.au)
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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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Other states will follow suit, I think the ACT already requires new builds to be 'gasless', or, at least, they aren't building the gas infrastructure into new suburbs.
I'd love to get rid of gas. I think an induction cooktop is possible and would be beneficial, but the hot water might be a bit more difficult. The daily connection fee is annoying so I'd like to cut it out entirely rather than just reduce it.
In new homes, they can be fitted with heat pump water heaters, or electric resistance. Heat pumps are fairly efficient, but need the house to be designed with that in mind. Electric is less so, but can use very small spaces and be retrofited as well.
In Australia, the climate is warm enough that installing a heat pump integrated into the top of the tank in a garage or outdoors is fine.
The biggest whinge is going to be giving up that little bit of space.
It would be interesting seeing what happens in NSW, given that their gas network has always been in private hands, with very little government involvement.
Gas hot water heaters tend to be a lot more efficient than gas cooktops. The flat bottom of most pots and pans means a lot of heat will escape up the sides, but hot water heaters can be designed with this in mind. On pots, I have one that basically has heatsink fins on the bottom to better capture the gas heat, but this is far from typical.
The only thing in my house that uses gas is the hot water heater. Down the line I'll probably replace it with a solar heater, if it can be made smart enough to have the water warm when needed.
That problem was solved 20+ years ago. Typically you have an element halfway up the tank, so the electric heats the top half only, but the solar heats the full tank.
Ripple, timer, or remote control can shift electrical consumption to times of lower cost (overnight, mid-afternoon) while having negligible impact on quality. A big tank will stay hot for a few days easily.
I had one in a rental I lived at for a while until it broke, that one used an instant gas boiler behind the tank to heat up the water more. The system you describe would be better (but by smart, I meant it should also take into account when free solar power is available, and predict when we're going to use hot water).
It depends on the utility pricing as to what's best in that regard, but yes, solar diverters on conventional electric-only tanks are pretty common in NZ. It's pretty rare to put both PV and solar hot water on the same house.